14 Ways to Reduce Your eBay & PayPal Fees

There’s no doubt that eBay is a leader when it comes to online selling and auctioning. But one of the biggest complaints by
sellers is the relatively high fees. Even for top rated sellers, fees eat a reasonable amount into their
profit margins.

Nonetheless, there are many unnecessary charges that sellers continue to pay for when they really
shouldn’t. The following is a list of 14 ways that can help you avoid the unnecessary fees on eBay:

1. Merchant discounts by PayPal

If your sales volumes are high, you might qualify for merchant discounts on PayPal fees. However, to be
considered, you need to apply for discounted fees through the fees page in your PayPal account. You can potentially
save up to 2 percent on PayPal transactions.

2. Credits for relisting

Normally, you cannot get a refund on insertion fees but eBay will credit the insertion fee for an auction that
doesn’t go through under the condition that you use a relist feature – such as ‘relist your item’ button – to
relist the item for the concluded listing and it is sold immediately after listing. You can potentially save up to
$4.8 on every listed item.

3. Reclaim fees when bidder fails to pay

If a buyer bids on an item and fails to pay, you can us eBay’s unpaid item procedure to request for a fees
refund. You will have up to 45 days after item closes to make your claim.

4. Host your Photos

As you know, eBay charges for any additional photo you use to describe your item. However, you can skip these
costs by hosting your photos on a free hosting service.

5. Adjust your starting price

It’s important to carefully choose your starting prices as a small price variation can result into a big
increase in insertion fees. For instance, a starting price of $49.99 incurs $ 1.2 in insertion fees while that of
$50.00 leads to $2.40 in insertion fees.

6. Use a cash back credit card to pay your eBay fees

A number of credit cards offer rebates on money spent, s, depending on your type of card, you can receive a
small rebate on your eBay fees, normally if you clear your credit card bill in full every month.

7. Learn HTML

EBay’s listing designer service is a handy tool for making seller’s
listings look better. But costs for this quickly shoot up if you’re listing multiple items. If you have simple
HTML skills, you can build your own template and save on these costs.

8. Create an e-commerce store

Possibly, the best strategy is to grow your business beyond eBay. You can use your eBay traffic to direct
customers to your website where you will make sales without any eBay fees.

9. eBay Shop Listings

On the whole, eBay shop listing fees are
still generally less than core listings, despite an increase. Items that need a prolonged listing period are better
listed on eBay shop.

10. Sell more pricey items

eBay charges higher for cheaper items so, by selling more expensive products, you can reduce the fees you pay to
eBay.

11. Re-evaluate the way you use listing upgrades

Because they are costly, listing upgrades should be avoided unless they bring a positive change to selling
prices and sell-through rates. There are various tools that will help you determine how effective listing upgrades
are for your product categories.

12. Second chance offers

The second chance offer feature on eBay enables several items to be sold from a single listing, saving on
listing fees for the extra items. Note that second chance offers are lower than the final price of the item so they
are a trade-off between sales volume and price.

13. Keep starting prices low

It is pretty obvious that lower starting prices attract more bids and reduce listing fees and given that
insertion fees depend on starting price, you’re better off keeping them low.

14. Dutch Auctions

Finally, make the most of Dutch Auctions because you can be able to use a single listing for multiple items,
saving on listing fees.